Ordeal by Meal- Max

I had a little, or maybe more than a little, trouble coming up with something to write for this post, which is why it's posted so late the night before it's due. However, my ordeal by meal has to do with consuming Cuy for the first time, and maybe only time, in my life.

For those who aren't familiar with this Ecuadorian delicacy, it is basically a Guinea pig that's simply roasted with nothing but a few spices, and served whole- or in my case, in pieces- on a platter. After a long week of eating nothing but bland fish, chicken, and rice in the Galapagos, my travel group ventured back to the mainland of Ecuador where we took a tour of the Equator and ventured up into the Cotopaxi National Park. With only the tea of the Coca plant (and yes, the same plant that is used to make cocaine!!) in my system, we hiked around the base of the mountain for about 3 hours before giving up and heading back to our hotel for our last night in the foreign, yet familiar city of Quito. Being from Long Island I've ventured around NYC many, many times, and Quito, besides the poverty emanating from every street corner, quaintly reminded me of home. So what else to end my trip then a traditional "home-cooked" meal?


So once our group arrived at the restaurant we firmly decided upon ordering this "delicious" delicacy (at which point my friend started hitting on the waiter in Spanish much to his amusement). We really had no idea what to expect: would it be whole on a pick? Would it be in pieces? Stuffed? Still with hair on it? Luckily, it was neither of these, although we thought that the sauce that arrived first was the cuy, at which point we were embarrassed to have spent $30 on a small bowl of soup. However, once the cuy came out we were thoroughly impressed. The chefs managed to hide it's distinguishable features with crust from whatever they roasted/fried it with. Until we ate through the meat and realized that it was actually baby teeth and not real bone that we were biting through that the realization of eating Guinea Pig was upon us. Although it sounds cliché, it really did taste like chicken, and duck. Besides its main composition of teeny, tiny bones and fat, the meat that was there was pretty delicious, even if split between 4 starving people who were also sick of the fish, chicken, and rice diet of the past week.

After we had consumed ever last bit that that Guinea pig had offered us, we kindly thanked the waiter for this delicious meal and tipped him rather generously- to make up for the $10 in coins we included in the bill. He seemed rather surprised that we had been so anxious to try the Cuy, and how excited we were for it as he knew we were from the NYC-area and probably tasted much better food and why we would "waste" our money on what he called: An overpriced, over-consumed Ecuadorian delicacy. 

We definitely enjoyed our meal and indulging ourselves into the culture and lives of the Ecuadorian people all crammed into one day on the mainland; hopefully in the future we can return and try dining in a more informal setting!